Late one night I was reading and thinking about God. I was comparing us to him, as we, human beings, are created in his image. I was imagining the immensity of a being who could feel love for all of the people to ever walk on this planet.Try to think of your own emotions. When acting, I try to portray an emotion as honestly as possible. It often helps me to analogize the emotion of the character, to an emotion I’m familiar with. The joy of winning a football game, for instance, could be likened to the joy of winning a battle. Though I’ve never been in, let alone won, a war, I can express a similar emotion to sort of simulate the experience.
There are far more emotions than just joy, though, like love, fear, anger, hate. Depending on the person, each emotion can control that person. A person feeling fear will act irrationally, just as a person feeling love, hate, or anger, would also act irrationally.
That’s because we can’t control our emotions as well as we’d like. I’m sure everyone has, at one point or another, lost their temper, even if it’s just in your thoughts, you’ve been angry and lost control of yourself. I’m not accusing anyone, obviously, I’m just saying it’s part of being in a fallen world.
Now, the strongest of these emotions, in my humble opinion (the author laughs as he types the phrase “in my humble opinion”, knowing full well humility has nothing to do with his opinions) is love. Love is the root for nearly all emotions, if you look for a common denominator. Anger, hate, joy, sadness, all those really can be traced back to love.
Now imagine being in God’s situation. If you believe that God made each person, (which I do) then doesn’t it follow that he loves each person? I think it does 🙂 With that in mind, imagine the emotions that God feels just daily. In one day God deals with countless ups and downs in his emotions.
One could argue that God doesn’t have emotions, but the Bible has verses about his wrath, and love, and joy. I would also conclude, since people are so emotional, and they are made in his image, that he is an emotional being as well.
Each day we are faced with decisions. C.S. Lewis believed that we have a central self, and each decision we make moves us closer to, or further from, God. Imagine how God feels each time he sees someone make a decision that drives them away from him. Think of the tears he must cry. For each decision! This is not his reaction to the general state of humanity, this is for a single lie, for a thought, for a reaction, mere moments, yet I feel sure he cries over each.
God doesn’t just deal with the sadness of the world, and the sickness, but he feels joy with those who feel joy, and he rejoices for each decision that we make that brings us closer to him. These decisions probably bring tears to his eyes as well, but these are tears of joy, cried because he’s bursting with happiness.
I can’t fully realize the emotions God feels. If his joy for the man who says, “Please help me, God,” is higher than heaven, then his anger with Satan must burn hotter than hell. If he cares for each person’s soul individually, then his anger has to be enormous, compounded per individual, growing with each devious prodding of the devil.
His sadness can’t be any less than his anger, in fact, it may be twofold. Each time he sees one of his children hurting, how badly does he hurt? Imagine when someone you love is hurting. He weeps with those who weep, and rejoices with those who rejoice. How sad he must feel for them!
But God doesn’t just laugh and cry like a person in the movie theater. God created time, and therefore exists outside of it, and he is able to laugh with us, cry with us, and at the same time lead us. Each time something happens, God tries to show us something. I think I might have whole other article on that concept, but I’ll write that later 🙂
Any time you’re having a hard time getting through something, know that you’ve got (literally) the biggest cheerleader, who loves and supports you, and is trying to show you the right way, and not only that, but he’s big enough to do that for you, and every other person. His immensity dwarfs your problems. He will always be bigger.
If God is for us, who can be against us?